My feet have walked this world and know its ways

My heart beats each day, but often strays

My hands meant to be raised in praise

But they often stay

Idle at my side

My eyes meant to be open wide

My life surrendered by it swells with pride

Sin still breathes when it should have died

My lips confess but I think I’ve lied

Still my soul longs to abide

In you

All I am and all I do

Baptized in fire and made new

Sin and pride killed and through

Washed in the crimson hue

I walk this world but its not the same

The world’s games of fame, and blame, and shame

Do not hold a flame

To my claim

That Christ is risen and reigns and king

Hell defeated, Death no sting

Come, let the world bring, anything

Still, I will sing and let the gospel ring

Our lives our His and can’t be shaken

Cause what’s in His hands can’t be taken

We are the church in the making

Darkness fading, light in-breaking

Satan, be ware, cause we are waking

And our hands will be raised in praise

Our faith a fiery blaze

Lips proclaiming your love and ways

Hearts fixed on you all our days

See my life and hear my cry

“Jesus is Lord” til the day I die

To this alone I testify

My first year in seminary, I had to interview for a few internships.  All of us first year students would talk with the internship director, who would try and place us with churches that matched our gifts and passions.  For this reason, I interviewed with a handful of churches looking to do local outreach.

While the interviews were designed for the leadership to get to know me, this was one of my first experiences getting to know church leadership.  It was one of my first experiences “behind the scenes”… getting to see how things run, the questions pastors ask, the goals they have, etc.

Again, all the churches I interviewed with were interested in doing more local outreach.  But over the course of our conversations, I discovered something that continues to bother and frustrate me.  These churches were driven to outreach out of selfish motives (not blatant, evil selfishness, but a real self-focus).

In these particular cases, the churches were dwindling.  The communities were filled with people with grey hair.   And the pastors were waking up to the fact that if they did not begin to reach out, the church would be in jeopardy of closing.  No doubt, many pastors and communities are waking up to that reality daily across the country.  But I remember leaving these interviews slightly confused and frustrated… they wanted to reach out to the community for  the wrong reasons.  Self preservation is not a good motive for loving our neighbor.  It allows “self” to remain our first love.  Which, makes loving others secondary.

It has been many years since that experience.  And I have learned that this is not just a problem for the small, dwindling congregation.  It may be more of an issue for many of the pastors serving in growing churches, many of them strong and stable.  What I mean by this, is church leadership often focuses on itself first.  Too many pastors, it seems, are driven by an image of success that highlights the “type of church” they want to lead.  While there is nothing evil in this, I believe it is subtly dangerous.  When “self” becomes the priority, things like outreach become secondary.  In other words, outreach becomes the means by which we become the type of church we want to be.  In this way, our outreach is not motivated by broken hearts but by becoming successful (success is a form of narcissism).

I think this is made most evident in our hearts and the language we use.  First, where is our heart?  If we are honest, many of our hearts are set on creating a certain type of church.  Again, there is nothing wrong with this… unless our hearts become more set on this than loving others.  Second, listen to the language we use.  I am amazed by the difference between pastors who talk about their city and pastors who talk about their church.  We tend to talk about the things that are on our hearts.  When the people of our city our continually on our hearts, we will talk about them and how we can show love and serve them.  When our church (and more so its style and programs, than people) are on our hearts, we will tend to talk about these things often.

These things are not mutually exclusive.  However, I believe we have gotten things quite confused and out of order.